The period between Christmas and New Year witnessed the first talks between a senior Israeli official and the Palestinian president in Israel since 2010. What happened Israeli defence minister Benny Gantz hosted Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas at his home in Rosh Ha’ayin on 28 December, marking the first time Read more…
Israeli prime minister this week Naftali Bennett congratulated Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in a phone call on Tuesday. Bennett also extended an invitation to Scholz to visit Israel. The two leaders discussed the important bilateral relationship between their countries, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office. They likewise agreed Read more…
Steps to a two state solution: For Israel, for Palestine, for peace Step Four: Support the establishment of an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and re-establish UK support for peace-building work Modelled on the highly successful International Fund for Ireland, an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace would allow the international community Read more…
A number of Palestinian factories in the West Bank will be able to sell their products to European markets for the first time as part of a plan approved by Israel’s defence minister, Benny Gantz, to strengthen and improve the economic standing of the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s Unit for Coordination Read more…
Steps to a two state solution: For Israel, for Palestine, for peace Step Two: Freeze settlement building Continued Israeli settlement-building – especially that which occurs beyond the security barrier – represents an obstacle to a two-seat solution. Both in public and in private meetings with senior Israeli government representatives, LFI Read more…
The Knesset gave initial approval to a bill limiting prime ministers to a maximum of eight years in office on Monday night. The coalition government passed the legislation’s first reading by 66 votes to 40 votes, with the Israeli-Arab majority Joint List party joining the government to support the bill. Read more…
The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah is reportedly trying to smuggle weapons into Israel to ferment unrest within the Israeli-Arab community, a police official has said. Israeli police have seen a significant increase in efforts to smuggle weapons into the country via the Lebanese and Jordanian borders since the May conflict Read more…
Labour Friends of Israel chair Steve McCabe MP has written the below article for LabourList. Click here to read the original. Earlier this month, we marked the tragic assassination in 1995 of Yitzhak Rabin – an event that robbed Israel of a great soldier and statesman. Rabin’s signing of the Read more…
Steps to a two state solution: For Israel, for Palestine, for peace Step One: Tackle the humanitarian crisis in Gaza with emergency infrastructure plan for improving energy supplies, sanitation and clean water After more than a decade of war, Israeli and Egyptian restrictions, and Hamas misrule, the humanitarian situation in Read more…
The Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee have called for the Israeli government and security services to take the issue of climate change more seriously and to consider it a national security issue, given the threat of posed by global warming. “There is no doubt that we are in Read more…
Merav Michaeli, Israel’s transport minister and leader of the Israeli Labor party, has joined other left-wing MKs in announcing that her party will oppose plans to build new settlements in the West Bank. During the weekly Labor caucus meeting, Michaeli said: “We will oppose any initiative that will prevent a Read more…
After 35 hours of voting, the Knesset last week passed a two-year budget – Israel’s first since 2018. The adoption of the budget – in which 800 opposition objections had to be voted upon – provides the anti-Netanyahu coalition government with a major victory, removing the threat of new elections Read more…